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Cnet reports a spanish startup company called Whisher is trying to offer an easy way to share Wi-Fi Internet access. They hope that broadband consumers will share access to their connection with others via the consumer’s existing Wi-Fi router. If large numbers of broadband customers share their connection then a mesh Wi-Fi network will develop without municipal or commercial development.

The Cnet article stated the snag in this utopian view of free Wi-Fi for everyone is that “[i]n the U.S., it’s illegal.” Illegal? On July 8, 2005, Cnet ran an article titled “FAQ: Wi-Fi mooching and the law” indicating it is not clear whether or not sharing Wi-Fi is legal. The article stated, “It depends on the wording of your contract with your broadband provider.”

A number of sites reported [Gizmodo, Slashdot, Glading, Techbuzz, Wired, Ars Technica] Pirate Bay’s announcement that it wants to buy its own island nation to avoid those pesky copyright laws. Pirate Bay started a donation drive to purchase the man-made island called Sealand. Ars Technica‘s article provides the most detailed coverage of the situation. The island is a “World War II-era British naval platform sitting in the sea off the coast of Harwich in southern England.” Sealand has a website explaining its history. The site states:

Sealand was founded on the principle that any group of people dissatisfied with the oppressive laws and restrictions of existing nation states may declare independence in any place not claimed to be under the jurisdiction of

Human society, from origin until now, has always been at war within and between groups and has led to two World Wars. Presently, terrorism and low intensity warfare are affecting many parts if the world.

As the current global population of 6 billion increases to 8 billion by 2025, national and international conflicts will continue to be a source of concern for humanity. When evil minds combine, good minds have to work together and combat. In this context, what are

Adriana at I Heart Techposted about an email she received that was an electronic handwritten note. She received it on her Treo. All it said was “<Handwritten Content>.” So she tried another email application on her Treo and she was able to view the GIF file that was the electronic handwritten note. She showed it to her friend who said, “Whoa – that’s so much more personal than a regular email!” The note was written using a tablet PC.

I agree the electronic handwritten note is more personal than a regular email. I don’t have a tablet PC and I prefer to type anything rather than write it out by hand. But considering the impact of handwritten notes, I use them in certain circumstances.

I am surprised at the number of Illinois attorneys who do not know that Illinois has one appellate court. Yes the appellate court is divided into districts, and the first district is further divided into divisions. But the Illinois Supreme Court has long held that all the divisions and subdivisions should be seen as one court. [People v. Layhew, 139 Ill.2d 476, 489-90 (Ill. 1990); People v. Granados, 172 Ill. 2d 358, 371 (Ill. 1996)].

What does this mean? It means, a decision from any district appellate court is binding on circuit courts outside of that district unless there is a conflicting opinion from the appellate court of the district where the circuit court sits. [Schmidt v. Ameritech Illinois, 329 Ill. App. 3d 1020 …

During the fall of 2006 Harvard Law School provided podcasts, videocasts, and other means for anyone to participate in its Law in the Court of Public Opinion Course (better known as CyberOne). The course covers “many different media technologies to understand how their inherent characteristics and modes of distribution affect the arguments that are made using them.”

I began listening to CyberOne podcasts late in the semester and now I’m listening/watching each class starting with the first. Its loaded with excellent information and you don’t need to be a lawyer or law student to understand the information provided.

Today I was listening to class number five (9/25/06) [audio, video, wiki page]. At about 36:20 on the audio version Professor Nesson makes some interesting points about empathic …

Often when writing a legal memo I come to a point where I want to recite a widely accepted rule of law, like a canon of statutory interpretation. For example, when interpreting a statute the court must determine and give effect to the intent of the legislature. I know there are hundreds of cases which recite this principle. But in legal writing any rule of law should be supported by citation to authority. Running a search on LexisNexis or Westlaw could be expensive. The solution is to search the Illinois Supreme Court website for an opinion supporting the rule of law. Here’s how to do it:

Today I had an image of a document that I needed to convert to text. In this age of free web apps I wondered whether there was a Free OCR web app. I found Jon Galloway’spost which basically concludes there are no satisfactory free OCR app. He did find Microsoft Office Document Imaging acceptable, but its not free and its not on the web. It comes with Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft Office 2003. I also discovered this web OCR app, but I did not get a chance to try it because the document I needed to OCR was in PDF format.

All this got me wondering whether Google will provide a free OCR app in the future. Google is doing a load of OCR work with their Book …